


Permets-tu? (Do You Permit It?)

by nerddowell



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 15:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot happier than the warnings make it sound, I promise!<br/>Reincarnation AU. Grantaire suffers through all the Amis' deaths, over and over. Every time, he and Enjolras die apart. But maybe not this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permets-tu? (Do You Permit It?)

He runs his fingers - familiar, paint-splattered, with dirt and turpentine stuck in their omnipresent crust under the nails - through his hair as he stares angrily at yet another blank canvas in front of him. The floor of his grandly-named 'studio', the fetid one-bedroom squat he occupies above a takeaway in Camden, is littered with torn-out pages of watercolour paper, some bearing half-finished sketches, most with frustrated scribbles blocking out whatever he'd attempted to draw underneath. The whistling and crashing of fireworks outside reminds him fiercely of the last time he'd been in London - something he doesn't want to think about. He bites down on the pad of his thumb until he can feel his teeth break through the skin; anything to break the circuit of thoughts getting started in his head.

He kicks an empty bottle of Smirnoff away as he flops, disheartened, down to his bed. He's not used to this block; usually the memories give him more than enough inspiration for his artwork, which Courfeyrac describes as 'disturbing' and made Jehan burst into tears the first time he saw them. He looks up at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster and trying to avoid the spots of water dripping every so often from the mains above his head. Outside, the bangs and crackles of fireworks - November fifth (or technically, the sixth), what a time to be alive - threaten to overwhelm him, to drag him back kicking and screaming to the London he last knew, and the many, many battlefields before that.

His phone buzzing in his pocket provides him with an opportunity for some much-needed distraction. He ignores the text from Courfeyrac asking if he wants to go and watch the Kew Gardens show (he'd rather die than get on the Tube at this time of night, even if he did want to stand in the middle of a crowd where all he can smell is sweat and gunpowder, listening to the sounds of explosions and trying to drown out the screaming and cries of agony echoing in his ears), and opens the next in his list. There's a group text from Joly, reminding everyone how dangerous fireworks can be and giving a thorough and in-depth walkthrough of first aid for burns, with Bahorel replying

 **Bahorel (2:46 AM)**   _Shut up, loser, I'm busy blowing shit up_

and Combeferre sending an exasperated reply in amongst Joly's consequent hysteria telling Bahorel not to be an arsehole and stop freaking his boyfriend out. Grantaire tosses his phone onto the floor and leans over the edge of his bed, trying to find the bottle of whiskey he dropped somewhere amongst the all the crap when he went to bed at dawn.

His sketchbook is open beside him on the pillow, open to the portrait of a man he knew probably better than he did himself. He swallows hard and slams it closed, that face being the last he needs to see at the moment. The packet of antidepressants Joly prescribed him a month ago are unopened, each blister pod still intact, on his bedside table. Grantaire considers them unnecessary; sure, they're free, because his med student friend pushes remedies and medicines onto the rest of them like sweets at a kid's party, but why would he take tablets - which would limit his alcohol intake if he didn't want to kill himself, and he's not saying that he doesn't sometimes, but Jehan makes a mean lasagna that's almost -  _almost_  - worth living for - for something a bottle of whiskey could cure on a good night and at least knock him out for on a bad one.

He ignores the rattle of his phone vibrating on the floorboards and pulls his pillow over his head. Maybe if he's lucky, he'll suffocate himself in his sleep.

 

Grantaire is woken by the sound of his phone ringing - obnoxiously loudly and to the tune of  _What Does The Fox Say_ , no doubt thanks to Gavroche the last time Grantaire passed out at Éponine's and the little shit was there - and he sits up with a monumental effort, swiping his greasy curls out of his eyes and making a flailing motion to grab the device of torture before the chorus can start up again.

"Mrrh?"

"You're awake," comes Courfeyrac's illegally chipper voice from the other end of the line, "good to hear. Anyway, coffee and gossip at the Musain in ten?"

Grantaire answers with another unintelligible grunt which Courfeyrac seems to take as assent before getting up for a shower. The least he can do is make sure he doesn't smell like a rubbish dump for his friends, even if he's not going to be able to  _look_  presentable. The only down side is that his shower is weaker than a trickle of piss, and he knows better than to go round to Courfeyrac's to ask to use his after a night with Jehan. He sighs, rubbing absent-mindedly at the tattoo on his inside bicep, a small black swan, his wholly pretentious sixteen-year old tribute to Mallarmé's poem. He snorts, wondering what Jehan would think of it, and decides he can't be bothered with the six-hour flow of rambling adoration he would no doubt be subjected to, should he ever bring it up with the poet. Instead he focuses on trying to wash his hair under the shower's pathetic dribble and grabs a towel to wrap around his waist once his hair is finally free of suds.

Courfeyrac meets him at the Musain, a cup of coffee already in his hand waiting for Grantaire's arrival, and the artist pours a liberal dash of whiskey into it, as is his custom - with Courfeyrac letting out a pained sigh and pretending not to notice, as is his custom - before heading inside to adopt his usual table at the back on the upper floor. Combeferre and Joly are sat at one table, Gray's Anatomy and various other medical texts spread out in front of them whilst Joly recites under his breath the bones in the skull and Combeferre annotates a diagram of the endocrine system and prompts him when he gets stuck. Marius is sat in front of the old fireplace, playing with Cosette's hair and clumsily braiding it with some of Jehan's flowers. Jehan himself is sat by the window with his nose in his notebook, a Robert Burns anthology and a collection of Byron and Keats stacked in an untidy pile on the table beside him. Courfeyrac sits himself on the sill and idly flicks through the top book, taking a sip from his diabetes-inducing caramel latte with a double shot of caramel.

Grantaire turns to his usual corner, to find his table occupied. Occupied by a young man with a shock of blond curls like ripples of sunlight and the deepest, most piercing blue eyes he has seen in his life. The abrupt jolt in his stomach gives him only enough warning to hang onto the edge of the table before the flashbacks start, and he finds himself collapsed on the floor with such an ache in his chest that he's sure someone has ripped his heart out of his ribcage and thrown it across the room, straight into the other man's open hands. Every time, every life - every time that he sees him, he knows. And every time, it wears him down that he can do nothing, that he will have to watch the love of this life - because he has had many - die, endlessly and forever.

It's enough to drive anyone to drink.

Combeferre is stood over him with a concerned look on his face, offering a hand to pull him up. Grantaire takes it, muttering something he thinks is an apology and trying to rub the pallor away from his cheeks. He's clammy, shaking, his heart thudding, and every inch of his skin  _burns_. There's a roiling in his stomach, not so much butterflies as the feeling of being on the edge of being sick with terror, and his head spins dizzily.  _Enjolras_. He remembers the Romans, the wild animals, the starving, stinking lion with its razor claws and its fetid breath, the splash of bright arterial blood over the sandy floor -

He promises himself he's not going to think about that. He's not going to think about the Romans, the Blitz, the Tudor court, the June Rebellion, the New York street gang, the endless times he has seen blood spilt over his hands as he tries, desperately, to save him. There have been so many times. And he is so very tired.

He drops down into a chair heavily, licking the spilt coffee off his hands, tasting the paint on his tongue. Enjolras is still staring at him, his fierce eyes narrowed under a brow slightly heavier this time around, a nose a little thinner and more crooked at the top, as though he broke it when he was a boy and although it was reset, it healed slightly wrong; his lips, crimson-red and full... All at once so achingly familiar, and yet new. There is nothing more confusing than seeing the face you know better than your own reflection through all the eyes in the world, and Grantaire can feel another migraine coming on - he isn't drunk enough to be thinking this shit - and takes a long, easy gulp of his whiskey, in the practised manner of a seasoned alcoholic. It soothes his stomach, the burn on the way down making the nausea diminish by comparison. Enjolras' eyes narrow, and although it makes his heart throb, a burst of dull, aching shame, Grantaire feels a little bit soothed. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Joly notices them eyeing one another and hastily makes an introduction. "Grantaire, this is–"

"Enjolras." He can't stop himself, the way it instantly springs to mind, forcing its way out of his lips before he even has time to think. The word wraps around him for a moment like a warm blanket, a bud of something suspiciously close to joy bursting inside him like a flower into bloom, before it turns to ice on his skin, raising goosebumps and making him shudder involuntarily. He's going to have to watch him die. Again.

There's another lurch of pain radiating through his entire body, and there are screams in his ears - Enjolras' screams, as the bomb lands just before he manages to get to the shelter, Grantaire, panic-stricken and coated with dust, still reaching out a frantic hand from the doorway, shrapnel lodged in his shoulder and blood trickling down his forehead; the swish of the executioner's axe and the dull thud as it connects with the block, the sickening squelch of the severed head bouncing on the boards of the scaffold - his nausea overwhelms him and he retches, his stomach flipping, vomit splattering his shoes and the floorboards. His vision threatens to go black, darkness creeping in at the edges as he sways on his feet; Joly is freaking out about the puke, Combeferre - ever the caretaker - carefully sidestepping it to help him sit down. Grantaire has seen him die, too. He has seen them all die.

"Your reputation precedes you, Enjolras," Courfeyrac says with a grin, and Enjolras snaps for him to shut up before returning to his textbook, a tome the size of Grantaire's head on European politics of the 19th Century. Combeferre is patting his shoulder gently, asking if he wants a drink of water, and Grantaire shakes his head loosely, with the feeling that it has been disconnected from his body. The sensation reminds him of the axe, and he quickly takes another gulp of whiskey to chase the thought away.

Jehan comes, then, to sit beside him, and murmurs soft reassurances that Grantaire isn't really listening to into his ear, his eyes on Courfeyrac. Grantaire, meanwhile, can't keep his gaze from the table beside the window, the blond head bowed over the politics textbook with his pen flying across the page and letting out disgruntled snorts of disgust every so often as he reads something particularly unpleasant about the social context and climate of the oppression of the past. Grantaire wonders idly whether he's reached the June Rebellion. During a night at Combeferre's, when he was too drunk and too afraid to sleep alone - because Grantaire categorises his nights by fear - he looked it up in one of the history textbooks lying around from Combeferre's last roommate, but he couldn't find any mention of himself, nor Enjolras or any of the others. It was bittersweet.

He finishes the bottle before the study meeting is over, and turns to Jehan, who has his head in another poetry collection and is frowning. Grantaire leans over and reads over his shoulder:

"How can we kill the long, the old Remorse  
That lives, writhes, twists itself  
And mines us as the worm devours the dead,  
The cankerworm the oak?  
How can we choke the old, the long Remorse?  
And what brew, or what philtre, or what wine  
Could drown this enemy–"

Jehan shakes his head, his shining copper hanging into his eyes, and his frown deepens. "I don't like this poem at all."

"I love it." Is all Grantaire offers on the subject, and he makes a note to himself to Google it when he gets back home. Jehan looks at him, unfathomable, for a moment, before holding the book out to him.

"Have it."

Grantaire shakes his head, pushing it back towards his friend, but the poet insists. He finally accepts and places it into his bag, with care of which he knows Jehan - and Enjolras, whose eyes he can feel watching him -  take note.

"–and this is Grantaire," Joly finishes, somewhat lamely, as he realises that he never completed the second half of his introductions. Courfeyrac snorts, playing with the cap of his pen as he doodles in the back of his notepad, and Enjolras gives Joly a contemplative look before his eyes return to Grantaire, who can feel a blush rising up his cheeks. The nausea in his stomach has died down a little, no doubt helped by having thrown up earlier - so spectacularly, and almost all over Enjolras, he thinks, and cringes - so he settles down in his seat and pulls out his sketchpad. He flicks past a sketch of Courfeyrac playing a drinking game with Bahorel, and one of Jehan braiding his long hair and softly whistling to himself, settling on a fresh page and letting his pencil skim over the paper, the shape of Enjolras leant over his book soon taking shape. He sketches the soft light accentuating the almost feminine curves of the student's face, the thick lashes against his cheeks, his eyes downcast and his brows knitted slightly with concentration; the gleam of one white tooth as he chews his bottom lip distractedly. Grantaire can imagine, behind the shutters of those long, fair-tipped lashes, his gaze, the blue of a sea storm and with all of its unbridled energy, crackling like lightning. He loses himself so entirely that it's only when Jehan lets out a gasp, a frightened squeak, that he snaps out of it and takes a look at what he's done.

Enjolras is sat at the table, but his head is on the book, his eyes closed and his mouth slightly slack as though fast asleep and snoring. There's a smudge of something dark on his cheek, probably blood from the wound in his hairline, the gold waves matted and sticking to his scalp. His chest, hidden by a flowing, Byronic white shirt with a dark jacket hanging open, is pierced by eight small holes, each with its small, spreading rosette of blood, like medals of honour. He swallows thickly - Paris, 1832 - and quickly shuts the book, but not before looking up and seeing every pair of eyes on his.

Enjolras is staring at him, the cool, aloof look replaced by something Grantaire cannot read - even after numerous lives of this man, the threads of their fates every time entwined, like lovers lost in passion - and he slowly rises from his seat. Grantaire swallows the lump in his throat, his eyes pricking with tears, and scrambles to his feet and out of the room before Enjolras has time to take a breath.

He heads for Éponine's, shaking, his legs feeling like jelly. In the middle of the street he stumbles and collapses to his knees, drawing in hysterical short, shallow breaths, his skin feeling like it's too small for his body. The sobs come without warning, tearing at his lungs, and he collapses entirely, rolling into a ball and sobbing into the pavement, his shoulders shaking, his heart agony.

 

Courfeyrac comes round the day after, when he's back from Éponine's and drunk enough to smile and clap him on the shoulder instead of running to the bathroom to hide amongst the broken razors and soaked towels. His friend doesn't quite seem to know what to do with himself, which is a warning sign if ever there was one. Courfeyrac is probably the person most at home in his own skin that Grantaire has ever met, and to see him fidgeting awkwardly makes his heart sink in his chest, the buoyancy donated him by the alcohol disappearing faster than Bossuet's chances at winning the lottery.

"So, you, um... You made a real impression last night," Courf mumbles, one hand pulling nervously at the beanie trying to restrain dark curls almost as wild as Grantaire's own. Grantaire rubs a hand over his face, the other clutching a bottle of Budweiser, and groans.

"Don't remind me."

"Jehan's worried about you," Courfeyrac says quietly, his brown eyes concerned. "We all are."

Grantaire nods, acknowledging, and kicks another empty beer bottle aside with his bare foot. It clinks against the wall, and Courfeyrac picks it up, tension rolling off him in waves as he spins it between his hands. He opens his mouth and closes it again, about to say something and then not, before taking a deep breath and obviously steeling himself to say it anyway. Courfeyrac was infamous for his chronic case of foot-in-mouth syndrome, and Grantaire could tell that he was struggling to be as delicate as he could. Despite his best efforts, though, it comes out as bluntly as ever.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Grantaire laughs. "The world, my friend, the world." He runs his hand through his hair again, a nervous movement, and Courfeyrac curses under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose with the tips of his fingers. He looks up again, and Grantaire forces himself to make eye contact.  _You, mauled by a lion in Rome, the last to die before Enjolras. Shot through the floor from beneath in Paris. Beheaded beside your suspected lover at the Tower of London. Trapped beneath the burning rubble of the house you shared with Combeferre and Jehan during the Blitz, caught until another bomb came and put you out of your misery, taking Enjolras with you._  And it's as instant as flipping a switch: his vision blackens, his grip on the bottle loosens, and he hits the floor with a dull thud.

 

He comes around a moment later, Courfeyrac kneeling on the ground beside him, a hand gently supporting his head, the other on his waist, ready to roll him onto his side in case he needs to be sick. Grantaire's whole body feels heavy, the welcome black of unconsciousness dragging at him as he lolls in Courfeyrac's arms, but the tense, scared expression on his friend's face makes him struggle to a vaguely upright position, fighting against the head rush and the dizzying whirl of nausea in his stomach. For a moment he can see Courfeyrac's neck ringed with a necklace of rubies, droplets of blood tight around his throat, but he blinks and they have mercifully disappeared. He rubs his eyes. Drinking really doesn't do as much for this as he likes to pretend it does.

"You okay to sit up properly?"

He nods, not trusting himself to speak, and Courfeyrac helps him to sit up against the wall, which Grantaire leans his head back against with a groan. A phone buzzes in someone's pocket, and Courfeyrac immediately reaches into his jeans to pull his out, unlocking the screen to accept the call.

"'Ferre – yes, I'm at his flat. He says – yeah, he says he's okay, but he passed out on me – I don't know, I didn't do anything – why do you always assume it's my fault? – Fine. I'll bring him there. – Okay. Bye, loser."

Grantaire closes his eyes. He feels too fucking weak to move a muscle, let alone get up and walk to wherever Combeferre is meeting them because he doesn't have a car or, depressingly, enough money for the Tube. Courfeyrac pulls him up to his feet and bundles him out of the door to his car, which is parked at the kerb and receiving a ticket from a passing warden. He lets out an "Oi!" of outraged dismay, and during the ensuing argument Grantaire leans against the car, pressing his head against the cool metal and trying not to think about last night. Easier said than done.

It was, he supposes, no worse than some of the sketches he has done in past lives. Himself and Enjolras writhing in passion, lips fused together as though breathing one another in, the drawing that got himself, Enjolras and Courfeyrac killed at Tudor court; Enjolras, with eyes of flame and a heart burning in his chest, snow settling on his body as he waved his red flag high above his head. Snow that did not melt as it would on the living. He is distracted from his thoughts by the slam of a car door, and Courfeyrac is suddenly sat in the driver's seat waiting for him to get in, clearly turning the air blue as he rants about the ticket he's just been given under his breath.

They drive to the Musain in silence, without even the radio to kill the deafening tension between them. Grantaire wishes he'd had more to drink, anything to make this bearable, but neither of them make a move to turn it on. Instead he settles for staring out of the window, counting red cars for lack of anything else to do.

When they get upstairs, having purchased a black coffee and Courfeyrac's usual sugar-fest by way of table rent, they seat themselves in the centre table, around which their friends are ringed, most notably Enjolras facing the window to their right. His heart gives a ridiculous, soul-crushing leap.

"Is this some kind of intervention...?" Grantaire asks, his eyes scanning the assembled crowd. He's met with solemn gazes from every person, even Bahorel, who usually can't keep a straight face during this kind of thing to save his life.

"No intervention, Grantaire," Combeferre says gently, his large hands on the backs of two chairs, which he pulls out for Grantaire and Courfeyrac to sit on, "just... a talk."

"By which we mean, you talk. Now." Enjolras turns around, pinning Grantaire under his glare. Grantaire's hackles rise a little, but he takes a deep, fortifying gulp of the coffee and slaps a sarcastic smirk onto his face.

"What about? Is the weather too dull, or did you have another topic in mind?"

"How about 'I'm fucked up and I need help'?" Enjolras counters, and the smirk slips a little. It takes him a moment to collect his wits enough for a response, and even then, it's only a weak, "What do you mean, fucked up?"

"Oh, I don't know," Enjolras snarls, his eyes narrowed, "maybe the fact that you're drinking yourself to death. Maybe the fact that every time you look at one of us, you go white as a sheet and either puke, pass out, or otherwise embarrass yourself. Maybe the fact that you've drawn all of us dead in that sketchpad. Quite frankly, you come across as a complete psychopath."

Grantaire swallows. He's used to this; they never remember. Of course his behaviour looks weird. But he can't think straight with his Apollo's attention focused wholly on him, the memory of the way those three words taste on his lips, the surge of overwhelming love he feels whenever he catches sight of Enjolras, no matter which life he's living - so strong as to be like a tidal wave, the current pulling him under and drowning him - the touch of their hands, the brief smile twitching at the corner of those beautiful, sensuous lips before the shower of red and the pain driving deep into the centre of his chest, snuffed out like a candle.

"I..."

"Take your time," Jehan says softly, "we're all here for you." Marius, by his side, nods.

"I just... It's complex," Grantaire almost pleads, tugging his hair, wishing more than anything for a drink. Combeferre, sensing his distress, reaches out and places a comforting hand on his shoulder, but it doesn't help; his skin burns for Enjolras' touch, the calloused fingers to take his, palm to palm, before they face the firing squad.

 _No. You're not going to die. You're only having a talk_ , he tells himself sternly, and almost believes it. Perhaps he would, if the look in Enjolras' eyes wasn't the exact same he had seen before the infamous  _Vive la République!_  so many years ago. Disappointment, disgust -  _you're drunk, you've finally awoken, you were supposed to be there with us, our friends have died around you and you didn't even stir_  -

Tears leak out, and he lets them fall, the agony too much to bear. "Please," he whispers, to himself, to Enjolras, to any God who was listening, "please, me first this time."

"I don't understand," Courfeyrac whispers to Jehan, and the poet shushes him quickly, pressing a finger to his lips.

"Please," Grantaire begs, "please, take me. Leave them. Please, I'm not one of them." I'm worth so much less – nothing. They deserve so much more. They are so much more. I've had enough.

"Tell us, Grantaire," Combeferre says quietly, his eyes soft and encouraging. And Grantaire looks up at Enjolras, and the sight somehow makes him obey.

 

_**The Tudor Court** _

_On the scaffold, Courfeyrac had wept, tears rolling over his cheeks, reaching for Jehan's hand as his head was thrust upon the block. The executioner had kicked it aside, swinging his great axe and bringing it down with a finality that cut the breath from Grantaire's lungs as well as the head from the Frenchman's body._

_Watching Enjolras' stoic silence, his resignation to his fate, was even worse. Closing his eyes did nothing for the images burned upon his retinas. The light grip of the other man's hand, relaxing as the limb flopped loosely to the boards. Death came as a blessing._

**_The Roman Circus_ **

_Slaves, pitted against gladiators and then against the animals. Bodies littered the ground, Combeferre letting out his last rattling breath as Jehan fell, pierced through the heart, by his side. Marius and Cosette dying together, in one another's arms, killed by the same man, who could not tear them apart for long enough to make of it more sport. The gladiators waved goodbye as Caesar's hand lowered, and the gates caging the animals began to rise. Behind them, the smell was rank. Open wounds, rotting meat and the heavy, nauseating scent of animals poorly treated hit them like a cudgel, and as Courfeyrac screamed, Grantaire whimpered, a fault he would never forgive himself for. Cowardice in the face of death, in the face of Enjolras, who met his end so bravely, hand gripping Grantaire's above their heads, fierce defiance - he would never forgive himself for that._

**_The London Blitz_ **

_The bombs fell endlessly, throughout the night, so often that Grantaire began to tune out the sirens, focusing only on the thudding of his pulse and that of Enjolras beneath his fingers. The warden banged on the front door, and his friend pulled him up from their position under the table - any cover is protection from the storm - and yanked him out, running for the Underground station, their allocated neighbourhood shelter. Enjolras lost his footing and fell, tripping over a lump of rubble the size of Grantaire's head lying on the ground. He helped him up, running for the steps with all his force, breathless and panting. He'd just reached the door when there was a cry of "Grantaire!" and he turned to see Enjolras carrying a child, no doubt now a war orphan, before the bomb exploded and he was flung back by the force of it, Enjolras' body becoming the cushion on which the child would sleep until morning._

**_The New York Gang_ **

_This time must have been the worst. Mobsters, driving past; caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. This time, he didn't even have a hand to hold._

 

They listen with morbid fascination, occasionally asking questions. Joly sobs into his hands every time he hears about Combeferre's end, and his own; Combeferre wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close against his strong chest. Jehan is trembling, white in the face and eyes wide; Courfeyrac is too agitated to soothe him, flinching at every word out of Grantaire's mouth. Enjolras listens in stony silence. The others, Grantaire pays no attention to. His eyes remain fixed on his Apollo, and Enjolras' gaze on his.

Eventually, when he reaches the end, there is silence. Joly is quiet, but huddled against the ashen Combeferre, who strokes his hair with a shaking hand. Jehan weeps openly, tears rolling down his cheeks, and makes no effort to brush them away; instead Courfeyrac, with a supreme force of will, breaks out of his stunned frozenness and dabs at them with a tissue, sweet nothings soundlessly leaving his lips. Enjolras watches them all, his eyes ablaze, before he crosses the room and stands in front of Grantaire.

"I die?"

"Every time." The reply is shaky, flavoured salty with tears and with pain.

"And you?"

"I live to see it. Longer, sometimes."

"Never together?" The question comes as something of a surprise. He's not sure what to say in response, so he settles for a simple:

"No."

"Then," Enjolras says quietly, eyes focused on him as he kneels slowly, taking Grantaire's hand, "it'll be together, this time. If you will permit it."

_Permets-tu?_

He sees it in Enjolras' eyes. And with that, Grantaire kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem Jehan was reading/Grantaire read out was Charles Baudelaire's _The Irreparable_.


End file.
